The White House was warned in January that US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn was vulnerable to Russian blackmail, a top former official told lawmakers pm Monday, as the issue of the president’s ties to Moscow returned to the spotlight.
Trump hit back by dismissing suggestions that his team colluded with Russia as a “hoax,” and calling the congressional investigations into Russia’s interference in the US election a taxpayer-funded “charade.”
Former acting attorney general Sally Yates, an appointee of former US president Barack Obama sacked by Trump early in his presidency, took the stand alongside former director of national intelligence James Clapper during Monday’s hotly anticipated three-hour hearing of the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
Photo: Reuters
Yates confirmed reports that she had told the White House, six days into Trump’s administration, that Flynn, a former military intelligence chief, had not been honest with US Vice President Mike Pence about his discussions with the Russian ambassador to Washington, leaving him vulnerable to leverage from Moscow.
It nevertheless took 18 days before Trump, pressed by Pence and others, dismissed the retired army lieutenant general, who had advised him on security issues throughout his presidential campaign last year.
“We believed that General Flynn was compromised with respect to the Russians,” Yates told the hearing in her first public comments on the scandal, which has dogged the opening months of Trump’s presidency.
“This was a problem because not only did we believe that the Russians knew this, but that they likely had proof of this information. And that created a compromise situation, a situation where the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the Russians,” she said.
Yates, who was fired on Jan. 30 after defying Trump over his contested travel ban, did not say what Flynn discussed with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in a number of phone calls in December last year that were secretly monitored by US intelligence.
Pence said in January that Flynn denied those calls involved sanctions placed on Russia by the Obama administration in response to its election meddling.
Trump has repeatedly branded the issue of Russian interference “fake news,” despite the US intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin himself was behind the meddling.
In a series of tweets Monday evening, Trump doubled down on that stance.
“The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” Trump said one post, while in a second, the president targeted Yates — claiming she had “said nothing but old news!” after earlier alleging that she leaked classified information.
Known as a tough and independent prosecutor, Yates has been a target of Trump’s ire since her refusal in January to support his controversial immigration ban on nationals from several Muslim-majority nations.
Yates’ comments came after former Obama officials revealed that the outgoing president himself firmly warned Trump against naming Flynn as national security adviser, just two days after the Nov. 8 election.
Obama had cautioned against Flynn, whom he fired in 2014 as head of the defense intelligence agency, due to his poor record in administration and personnel management.
In separate testimony on Monday, Clapper called Russia’s interference in last year’s election “a clarion call for vigilance and action against a threat to the very foundations of our democratic political system.”
“I believe they’re now emboldened to continue such activities in the future, both here and around the world, and to do so even more intensely,” he said.
The dual testimony by Yates and Clapper returned the spotlight to the simmering controversy over Russia’s meddling in last year’s US election. Probes by several congressional committees into Russian election meddling have been bogged down for weeks amid accusations by Democrats that Republicans have stalled progress to protect the White House.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in